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Howard Ashman
| birth_place = Baltimore, Maryland, U.S. | death_date = | death_cause = Complications due to AIDS | death_place = New York City, U.S. | resting_place = Oheb Shalom Cemetery | alma_mater = Indiana University (1974) | occupation = Lyricist, librettist, musician | partner = Bill Lauch (1984–1991; Ashman’s death) | height = 1.8 m | years_active = 1977–1991 | parents = Raymond Albert Ashman Shirley Thelma Glass | awards = Disney Legend (2001) }} Howard Elliott Ashman (May 17, 1950 – March 14, 1991) was an American playwright and lyricist.Obituary Variety, March 18, 1991. He collaborated with Alan Menken on several works and is most widely known for several animated feature films for Disney, for which Ashman wrote the lyrics and Menken composed the music. Ashman and Menken began their collaboration with the musical God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater (1979), for which Ashman directed and wrote both book and lyrics. Their next musical, Little Shop of Horrors (1982) for which Ashman again directed and wrote both book and lyrics, became a long-running success and led to a 1986 feature film. The partnership's first Disney and Warner Bros. film was The Little Mermaid (1989), followed by Beauty and the Beast (1991). After his death, some of Ashman's songs were included in another Disney and Warner Bros. film, Aladdin (1992). Early life and education Ashman was born in Baltimore, Maryland, the son of Shirley Thelma (née Glass) and Raymond Albert Ashman, an ice cream cone manufacturer. His family was Jewish. Ashman first studied at Boston University and Goddard College (with a stop at Tufts University's Summer Theater) and then went on to earn his master's degree from Indiana University in 1974. Career After graduating from Indiana in 1974 he moved to New York and worked as an editor at Grosset & Dunlap. His first two plays, Cause Maggie's Afraid of the Dark and Dreamstuff, were met with mixed reviews. His play The Confirmation was produced in 1977 at Princeton's McCarter Theater and starred Herschel Bernardi. In 1977 he became the artistic director of the WPA Theater in New York. He met future collaborator Alan Menken at the BMI Workshop, where he was classmates with Maury Yeston and Ed Kleban, among others. He first worked with Menken on the 1979 musical Kurt Vonnegut's God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater, adapted from Vonnegut's novel of the same name. They also collaborated on Little Shop of Horrors with Ashman as director, lyricist, and librettist, winning the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Lyrics. He also directed the workshop of Nine by Yeston at the Eugene O'Neill Theater Center, and after asking why Guido's wife stays with him after she knows he has not been faithful, inspired Yeston to write "My Husband Makes Movies" Ashman was director, lyricist and bookwriter for the 1986 Broadway musical Smile (music by Marvin Hamlisch). Also in 1986, Ashman wrote the screenplay for the Frank Oz–directed film adaptation of his musical Little Shop of Horrors, as well as contributing the lyrics for two new songs, "Some Fun Now" and "Mean Green Mother From Outer Space," the latter of which received an Academy Award nomination. In 1986, Ashman was brought in to write lyrics for a song in Disney's Oliver & Company. While there, he was told about another project that they had been working on for a couple years. The film was The Little Mermaid, Disney's first fairy tale in 30 years. Ashman, along with Alan Menken, wrote all of the songs for the film. Ashman became a driving force during the early years of the Disney Renaissance. He would hold story meetings and said the animation and musical styles were made for each other which is why Disney needed to continue making musical movies. He also made strong choices in casting actors with strong musical theater and acting backgrounds. The Little Mermaid was released in November 1989 and it was an enormous success. Ashman and Menken received two Golden Globe nominations and three Academy Award nominations including two for "Kiss The Girl" and "Under The Sea" with Ashman winning both awards for the latter. In 1988, while working on The Little Mermaid, Ashman pitched the idea of an animated musical adaptation of Aladdin to Disney. After he wrote a group of songs with partner Alan Menken, and a film treatment, a screenplay was written by Linda Woolverton, who had worked on Beauty and the Beast. Directors John Musker and Ron Clements then joined the production, and the story underwent many changes, with some elements of the original treatment being dropped. Out of the 16 songs written for Aladdin, three of Ashman's songs ended up in the finished film, which was released after his death. During early production of Aladdin, Ashman and Menken were approached to help reinvigorate and save the production of Beauty and the Beast, which was going nowhere as a non-musical. Ashman, wishing to focus on Aladdin and his health, reluctantly agreed. It was at this time that his health began to decline due to his illness. Regardless, he completed lyrical work on Beauty and the Beast before succumbing to AIDS. The film was released mere months after his death and is dedicated to him. Along with Menken, Ashman was the co-recipient of two Grammy Awards, two Golden Globe Awards and two Academy Awards. Upon receiving his second Academy Award posthumously, William P. "Bill" Lauch, his partner, accepted the award in his stead. Illness and death On the night of the 62nd Academy Awards, Ashman told Menken that they needed to talk when they got back to New York, where he revealed to Menken that he was HIV positive. He had been diagnosed in 1988, halfway through production of The Little Mermaid. During the making of Beauty and the Beast, the Disney animators were flown to work with Ashman at his home in Fishkill, New York. There they discovered that he was seriously ill. He grew weaker but he remained productive and continued to write songs. After the first screening for Beauty and the Beast on March 10, 1991, the animators visited Ashman in the hospital. He weighed 80 pounds, had lost his sight, and could barely speak. The animators and producer Don Hahn told him that the film was incredibly well received by the press. On the early morning of March 14, Ashman, age 40, died from complications from AIDS, in New York City''.Blau, Eleanor. "Howard Ashman Is Dead at 40; Writer of 'Little Shop of Horrors'", ''New York Times, March 15, 1991 Beauty and the Beast is dedicated "To our friend Howard, who gave a mermaid her voice and a beast his soul, we will be forever grateful. Howard Ashman 1950–1991." Ashman was survived by his partner Bill Lauch, his sister Sarah Ashman-Gillespie, and his mother Shirley Thelma Glass. He is buried in Oheb Shalom Cemetery in Baltimore, Maryland.Wilson, Scott. Resting Places: The Burial Sites of More Than 14,000 Famous Persons, 3d ed.: 2 (Kindle Location 1746). McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers. Kindle Edition. Awards and nominations Over the course of his career, Howard Ashman won two Academy Awards out of seven nominations. Of these nominations, four are posthumous nominations, the most in Academy Awards history. He also won a posthumous Laurence Olivier Award and five Grammy Awards (three of them posthumous), among other accolades. Accolades Special recognitions * 1990 – Special Award for outstanding contribution to the success of the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences' anti-drug special for children, for the song "Wonderful Ways to Say No" from the TV special Cartoon All-Stars to the Rescue * 2001 – Disney Legend Award (POSTHUMOUS) Tributes On the 2002 Special Edition DVD of Beauty and the Beast, the Disney animators teamed up again and added a new song called "Human Again", which Ashman and Menken had written for the film, but was cut from the finished film. On Disc 2, there is a short documentary entitled Howard Ashman: In Memoriam that features many people who worked on Beauty and the Beast who talk about Howard's involvement on the film and how his death was truly a loss for them. Jeffrey Katzenberg claims there are two angels watching down on them that put their magic touch on every film they made. Those two angels are Ashman and Walt Disney himself. An album of Ashman singing his own work entitled Howard Sings Ashman was released on November 11, 2008, by PS Classics as part of the Library of Congress "Songwriter Series." The 2009 documentary, Waking Sleeping Beauty, which centers around Disney's animation renaissance, is dedicated to him, as well as Frank Wells, Joe Ranft, and Roy E. Disney. In March 2017, Don Hahn confirmed he was working on a documentary biographical film about Howard Ashman. The documentary film titled Howard premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival on April 22, 2018. Filmography * The Confirmation (1977) (writer) * God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater (1979) (lyricist, librettist and director) * Little Shop of Horrors (1982) (lyricist, librettist and director) * Smile (1986) (lyricist, librettist and director) * Little Shop of Horrors (1986) (lyricist and screenwriter) * Oliver & Company (1988) (lyricist for "Once Upon A Time in New York City") * The Little Mermaid (1989) (lyricist, producer, additional dialogue) * Cartoon All-Stars to the Rescue (1990) (lyricist for "Wonderful Way To Say No") * Beauty and the Beast (1991) (lyricist, executive producer) (dedicated) * Aladdin (1992) (lyricist for "Arabian Nights", "Friend Like Me", and "Prince Ali"). References External links * Official website * Profile @ vimeo.com * * Disney Legends * * }} Category:Howard Ashman Category:1950 births Category:1991 deaths Category:AIDS-related deaths in New York (state) Category:American expatriates in Burkina Faso Category:American lyricists Category:American musical theatre lyricists Category:Best Original Song Academy Award-winning songwriters Category:Walt Disney Animation Studios people Category:Disney people Category:Gay musicians Category:Gay writers Category:Grammy Award winners Category:Jewish American songwriters Category:LGBT dramatists and playwrights Category:LGBT musicians from the United States Category:LGBT people from Maryland Category:LGBT songwriters Category:LGBT writers from the United States Category:LGBT Jews Category:American male dramatists and playwrights Category:Musicians from Baltimore Category:Peace Corps volunteers Category:Writers from Baltimore Category:20th-century American dramatists and playwrights Category:20th-century American musicians Category:Animation composers Category:Boston University alumni Category:Indiana University Bloomington alumni Category:Tim Rice Category:Alan Menken Category:Marvin Hamlisch Category:Chad Beguelin Category:Michael Kosarin Category:Kevin Kliesch Category:Glenn Slater Category:Benj Pasek and Justin Paul Category:Lin-Manuel Miranda Category:Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil Category:James Horner Category:Hans Zimmer Category:Fiachra Trench Category:Stanley Myers Category:Shirley Walker Category:Nick Glennie-Smith Category:Danny Troob Category:Miles Goodman Category:Carole Bayer Sager Category:Jonathan Sheffer